Avalance - Avalanche (1976)

Band: Avalanche
Album: Avalanche
Year: 1976
Label: Bootleg/ABC Records
Catalog number: AB 1000

So, what album got me back into vinyl? Was it my beloved Marillion? Was it the other bands I have been infatuated with my whole life The Damned, Hanoi Rocks, The Lords of the New Church? Was it the first edition of Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick that I acquired in a pile of records from my father-in-law? Close on the Tull, but no.

In all honesty the album that hooked me back into collecting vinyl is the one pictured above, Avalanche. I acquired the album in the same pile of vinyl that the Thick as a Brick was hiding in, but it was this one that really took hold of me. Now, go ahead everybody, give me the collective "Who?" that I know you are all saying at this moment.

It is that very question of "Who?" that hooked me on vinyl. Not that this album is great, as it is not. The album is good and does include a very good song that should have been a hit. But it is that very question of "who" that got my mind going. I loved the fact that I was holding an album from 1976 (I was 6 years old) by a band I had never heard of before.

You see, I started to realize during the early days of Rock there were bands everybody knows of (The Beatles, AC/DC, etc.), there are bands that had success that not everybody knows of (Uriah Heep, Saxon, etc.), then you have your one hit wonders. These are the standard levels we usually deal with. The first group are the "everybody" bands. The bands non-music fanatics know and buy. The second group of bands are the bleed over bands. The bands everyday people know, and the ones that are the gateway bands for people. The ones that usually people who are real music fans follow. The one hit wonders are the ones that fit for both categories.

But then there are bands like Avalanche. The bands that got one album, usually based on their local popularity. They were offered up the one album with options, or two albums with options. They then got their one album, no push from the label, and faded away. I started to realize there are probably thousands of these bands. Or there are bands that had a handful of albums and did OK (we will meet Roadmaster on a later date), but were then forgotten about over the years due to Classic Rock radio not understanding that maybe people don't wish to hear "Stairway to Heaven" for the next 40 years and might be interested in other "Classic Rock" acts.

So that brings me to the album we have here. Avalanche was an act out of Australia in the mid-70s. They had this one album, yet they seem to have had a reputation during the period. The guitarist Tony Naylor also appears to have continued on being known for his guitar playing since this period in his life. A little research pointed me in the direction of three of the members, but nobody went on to do much more than Avalanche.

So what exactly is Avalanche? They were basically a straight up hard rock act fairly typical of what one would find in the 70s.The sound was fairly Boogie Woogie (which seemed to be an Australian thing, as AC/DC had a lot of Boggie Woogie in their sound) with a little Blues thrown in for kicks. They got a little flashy at times with experimental tunes.

An area that Avalanche does struggle in from time to time is their backing vocals. I apologize to the band, but some of the backing vocals are pretty bad. This is most obvious in the fairly rough song "Annie," which also unfortunately suffers from a chorus that features the line "Annie will you leave with your Grannie?"

As for the really good, maybe even great tune, that is the track "Landslide." An absolutely killer song with a great groove and incredibly catchy chorus.

If you stumble onto this album in your used shop grab it if the price is right. If you can find it for $5.00 or around that price, go for it. For my money the song "Landslide" is worth that amount in itself. If any of the other songs click for you (which many of them could) then it is all a bonus.